March 2006

Since that’s a bit of an expensive option, sweetskins.com have made being environmentally friendly a little bit easier by making clothes that don’t look ugly and are laregly made of either hemp or, and I’m being serious now, 2 litre drinks bottles. That’s right, drinks bottles. Apparently they remain “unbelievably soft” though, so who am I to question their planet saving ways.

Today’s recommendation is a new style for HYA, it’s a hoody, but not as we know it. It’s a wrap hoody!

I certainly haven’t seen one before, but then again, I don’t often hang around in womens clothing stores. Anyway, it looks pretty cool, and probably kinda ninja in the black version.

This one is a bit pricier than the usual wearables that I recommend, but it’s just so darned good that it deserves mentioning, the design is fairly simple and cartoon-y, but that only adds to the attraction for me, and it looks as if its flock printed (or perhaps stitched felt?) for you know its taken a bit more time than a print, so it’s naturally going to be a bit more expensive.

Saltlick Jeni gave me a bit more information about their clothes, every shape is hand-cut and then hand stitched onto the item, so it takes a long time, so its damn good value really. Oh and Jeni also said she might be able to sort out a discount voucher for us, so if you’re thinking of buying anything just wait a day or two and you’ll probably make a saving

An imaginary prize to anyone who gets the reference in the title (real prizes when this is a big-blog).

It feels kinda counter-ideology to post a hoody made by Hurley, since they’re a giant company (compared to the independents that I usually promote), but I like the hoody so it deserves a spot.

The placement of the print is interesting, I assume they were going for a “failed DIY screenprinter” look by just throwing the print in the ‘wrong’ place and at a bit of an angle. To top it off they’ve put some text on the back, on the upper right shoulder, I got way too excited when I noticed that, maybe I should just wear all my clothes backwards and then I’d always have a design on the back?

Costiness=$27.25 (half price, and $1 shipping this week only) available from Pacsun.

I really can’t help myself from helping out girls, just yesterday the really hot girl from next door asked for a bin (trash) bag, and did I give her one (yep, I went there)? No, I gave her two, because if a girl smiles at me I will do anything.

Now Diane from Boppo Clothing (that’s her up there I think… on the left) didn’t ask me for a bin bag, or even for me to mention her tee designs, but she wrote such a nice e-mail telling me how awesome I am that a post was the least I could do. She doesn’t actually sell anything with sleeves, but the tees are damn fine and super cheap too, with prices around $10 before shipping and handling.

Reminder to all store owners out there, I’m not elitist in any way, point me towards your store and I will check it out, you can find my e-mail on the contact page.

Something for the ladies’ today (and only the ladies I’m afraid), coming from Crowded Teeth, who I thought I’d mentioned before, but clearly haven’t.

I’m not usually too keen on large prints, but I have a thing for hoodies (any clothing actually) that has a design on the back, and that repetitive and uniform apple design is bizarrely compelling to me.

Also, the design on the back is printed with flock, which you don’t see too much of nowadays, I don’t know why, I love the stuff, I’ve got a tee promoting my other blog that I’ve worn once a week for a year and the flock print on that still looks great.

It’s a good thing that Jason started posting at Preshrunk again otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to contact him to be the latest person who reveals what it is that “hides their arms” (patent pending). Ever the modest fellow, it took him time to adjust to the fact that I wanted his opinion on clothing, but when it became clear that I hadn’t made a mistake I got the following gold nugget of information:

I’d love to be involved so long as you realize that you weren’t
trying to ask Josh Spear what’s covering his arms…

It might make you cry, but the lion’s share of my hoodies are plain black Dickies ones, sans the thermal lining and washed enough times in warm water to fade them down to more of an Asphalt color.

The only hoodie I own with anything other than pasta sauce or refried beans – I’m a messy eater sometimes – decorating it is the fantastic 1337 hoodie from Little Gamers. Well, I should say that I used to own it. You see, it’s such a sweet hoodie that I sort of loaned it out to my girlfriend and now she refuses to give it back.

*shrug* Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.

He also gave me a link to his original post where he gives a less sauce and girlfriend based review.

She is actually wearing her heart(s) on her sleeve(s), on her sleeve(s)!Joking aside it’s cool to see Red Canary breaking away from the norm and producing something out of the ordinary. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hoody which had nothing on the torso and printed sleeves, but then again I have only been blogging hoodies for two months. The hearts are pixelated too, so it’s a bit retro too, I guess it might make you feel as if your arms are 1UP icons from a NES game, and by hugging someone you give them more life? Did I work out the meaning Red Canary? Was I even close?

They also do a sumo version which is arguably more of a design triumph, but writing about hearts is so much easier.

Like the title says, I was born before this design was made, so it feels like cheating just to wear it. Now, when I say design, I mean the actual print, I’ve seen that all over the place, I suspect that the hoody design is rather younger.

Nevertheless, I still think it’s pretty cool, I’m tempted to say it looks best on a distressed t-shirt (Urban Outfitters maybe? we don’t get them here) but the hoody is nice too. You know what would have been cool? If it was just the angel on the front and the writing on the back (or vice versa), sure, I’d be bastardising one of the most iconic images in rock history, but…. it would be a nice hoody.

Also, it comes on ‘super sweet puffy paint’, which sounds quite bizarre, but it it truly is super sweet then I can roll with it.

Costiness=$65 (try shopping around, I don’t think it is printed by the shop) URL here.

I like the idea of putting a print on the back and leaving the front plain, and the zombie print in the back-lower-corner of this hoody from Merch-Bot is pretty stealth, like people will think it’s just a regular plain hoody, and then they’ll notice the notice, and they’ll give an approving nod and smile. Cool points.

It isn’t just Threadless that can sell their products at the $10 mark, Randomshirts have got in on the act as well, actually this sale/clearance started first (and even have a few things cheaper than that), but that’s neither here nor there.

I’m not usually too into vintage style t-shirts, because no one would ever believe that I worked at Randy’s Truck Stop in 1973, and I’m not a liar, so I tend not to wear that kind of thing. As ever, I’m off topic, it’s a good irreverent design, I especially like the Elvis reference and the stars, it feels like Japanese people trying to copy American 70s culture, even though I know that it’s Americans copying Japanese people copying American culture. Genius.

If you’re worried about the quality, considering how low low prices at RS, their shirts hoodies and long sleeves are printed on Hanes, Fruit of the Loom or American Apparel (check the FAQ for more information).

Threadless is running another of it’s popular $10 sales, it finishes at 10am CST on Wednesday, so you’d better be quicker than usual. Oh yeah, they’ve reprinted Flowers in the Attic (which is basically them printing money, as one person said in the Threadless blog/forum), but it is a bit pink, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Oh an if you’re wondering why I’m posting about tees instead of hoodies, I’m a cheap guy and I want street team points, you didn’t think I was doing all this blogging for the warm feeling inside, did you?

I was watching The O.C. today on Channel 4 (even though I’d already seen it, but lets keep that between me and you), it was the “The Chrismukkah Bar Mitz-vahkkah” episode where Ryan became a real man and finally turned 18. In a scene where Marissa went to visit Johnny I thought I noticed something odd…

No-longer-surfer-boy was wearing the Option G hoody. I dived forward in my seat, much like when they reveal one of their dramatic plot-twists, and then I laughed at myself for being quite so involved with the O.C., and quite so obsessed with hoodies.

I thought that people might want to know since I know lots of people get to here through google searches that involve Seth Cohen and the O.C.

It’s Monday, so it’s time for me to have an extended weekend and let someone else do the searching for me. This week t-shirt blogger Aris from the rather excellent Addicteed.com was asked what hides his arms, and the lover of camo landed the following gem in my inbox:

There’s this jacket/zip up hoodie by WE clothing titled ” The Chester ”
(it can be found at Karmaloop.com under the jackets section – and probably in some other online retailers)

I’m usually not into all over prints but I have a weakness for camo patterns and this one is really nice. It looks like a common camo hoodie from far away but once you get closer there are some very nice details (Eiffel Tower, Skyscrapers etc.) I was between this and the blue version of the addict method zip hoody swift camo ( I think you featured the green version a while ago) but if I had to choose between the two I’d go for the chester hoodie by WE

Whilst I’m not camo crazy, I can appreciate the details in this design, so thanks to Aris for helping out here at HYA, the support that HYA gets from total strangers really is appreciated.

How on earth did I manage to do about two months of posting without mentioning pirates once?

I don’t really get the whole pirate obsession that exists within eCommerce, even though I have been known to dress up as a pirate (complete with parrot) on occasion, but I do like thi.

Blackbird fashion is ran by the fabulously named Clarity Miller (look, I’m British, we don’t get all those cool American names like ‘Audio Science’ and ‘Pilot’), and whilst Blackbird is a mighty pirate-y name for a clothing label, there isn’t actually that much pirate schwag there, so if you’re looking to get kitted out for your next frat party or bar crawl, sorry.

I like the stitched on felt that’s been used to create the skull and cross bones, and for a change I actually like that something is one colour, if there were any more if would detract from the simple design.

Today I’m featuring Mono Clothing, which is a little bit special to me because they’re straight out of my adoptive hometown of Leicester, I actually found out about them through the Leicester group on Flickr, the joys of the internet…

I like this limited edition (there’s only 30 of them) stencilled blocks sweater, it’s a good design, the blocks are actually cooler than you think, as they’re part of the menu system that you use to guide yourself around the store.

Costiness=Â£59.99 URL here (though I guess I can find them around town somewhere).

** My mistake folks, it’s actually an emboridered design, not stencilled, which is even better! (thanks to Al at Mono for clearing that up)**

I’m straddling a dangerous line of promoting a tee here, but only because I didn’t realise that Hard Boiled clothing were ever so helpful to their customers and have made many (all? I haven’t had time to check) of their designs available as a tee/ scoop neck/ three-quarter length/ long sleeve (HYA’s main concern)/ tank top and as a raglan. My choice for the day comes in a wide variety of colours too, power to the consumer!

I really like the idea of making designs available in different types of apparel, and I wish I saw it more, but it is understandable that many of the smaller independent artists that I feature here can’t afford to take the risk.

I like this chairs long sleeve T (or raglan), the design is simple yet interesting, and I guess from the inset picture is has printing on the back, and I love printing on the back, unless it’s tour dates for a band in which case it just lets people know I went to see the Foo Fighters in 2002.

Costiness=$Various, if a raglan has long sleeves then it’s $34, the long sleeve tee version is $42, URL here.

Andy over at the Quiet Life e-mailed me about their latest goings on in LaLa Land (I’m sure only people who aren’t from there call it that) and I thought it was worth a post since I like what they’re doing as a group.

They’ve got a spring sale running until the 17th of March (this Friday) with money off everything in store, and they’ve got countdowns on how many of each hoody is left just to get you in even more of a spending frenzy!

They’ve also had a major update on their camera club section, it’s jam packed with excellent shots by photographers from around the world (what else would you expect? This is the internet, after all). If you like the pictures then I encourage you to get a copy of the book they published, which also has a few dollars off its usual price until Friday.

They also recently ran a competition asking people to draw cameras in exchange for glamourous prizes, check out the winning drawings here.

Last week I asked Erik from No Star Clothing what was hiding his arms at the moment, and he promptly replied with a great choice that I would have posted myself if he hadn’t beaten me to it.

My favorite item right now is the option-g outlet hoodie. I like it because I’m electric, and if you touch me you might get shocked.

So that’s just a warning for you, if you buy anything from No Star make sure you are properly grounded when you open the package, otherwise you might get some kind of electric shock, and no one wants that.

Costiness=$44 (small size sold out), URL here. (Option-G clothing have some great stuff in their store, have a look around)

A couple of days ago I tagged a hoody by Addict to my del.icio.us thinking I might use it for a future post, and then just a couple of hours later, I get an e-mail from the good folks at Jungle Life told me to check out the new camo line from Addict. Great minds, eh?

I was actually going to highlight a different product, but I’ve gone off it a bit now, it feels a bit hip-hop to me, whilst the camo range is a bit more Ian Brown. At first I found myself not too into the whole camo thing, I don’t think it would suit me, but I can imagine it looking good on a lot of people, so this is my altruism for the day. There’s various styles available, but I picked this track jacket as an example.

Costiness= Â£64.99 (Â£5 cheaper than the official addict store…) from Urban Industry.